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Published

Jan 08, 2015

On Tuesday, December 23, the Measure Applications Partnership (MAP) released draft recommendations for inclusion of measures in federal programs.

The MAP reviewed 202 measures included in the 2014 Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Measures under Consideration (MUC) list released on December 1, 2014. These draft recommendations are provided in Excel format and through a draft report, both available for public comment.

Select Highlights of Measure Recommendations:

•Overall Summary: In its initial recommendations, MAP provided full support for only 23 measures under consideration for various federal programs; MAP conditionally supported several of the remaining measures. MAP included rationale for its conditional support of the remaining measures, including the need for National Quality Forum (NQF) endorsement or further development/testing. MAP did not support 56 of the measures included in the report, mostly due to the fact that many of the 56 measures were in the early stages of development, but did encourage further development. MAP did not come to a consensus for an additional nine measures under consideration.

•PQRS, Physician Compare, Physician Feedback, and VBPM: MAP reviewed over 100 measures under consideration for the Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS), Physician Compare, Physician Feedback, and Value-Based Payment Modifier programs. MAP fully supported two measures under consideration for these programs. MAP encouraged further development for 50 measures, and conditionally supported 42 measures for the programs. MAP did not support two measures and did not achieve consensus on two other measures under consideration for these programs.

•MSSP: MAP reviewed over 100 measures under consideration for the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP), did not support 33 of those measures, and did not encourage additional consideration for 17 other measures. MAP provided conditional support for 21 measures and encouraged additional development for 38 measures. MAP fully supported six measures under consideration for MSSP.

•IQR and HVBP: MAP supported three measures under consideration for the Inpatient Quality Reporting (IQR) Program and one measure under consideration for the Hospital Value-Based Purchasing (HVBP) Program. MAP conditionally supported eight measures for IQR and four measures for HVBP. Notably, MAP did not review several episode-based payment measures, because CMS is no longer considering these measures for the IQR or the HVBP Program.

CMS to consider MAP’s input during federal rulemaking for public programs beginning later in 2015. This comment period represents an important opportunity for stakeholders to provide input on MAP’s recommendations, particularly regarding the measures for which MAP was unable to achieve consensus during its initial review. Compared to prior MAP input to CMS, MAP’s initial recommendations in 2014 were more conservative (e.g. fully supporting a very small proportion of measures, not reviewing measures without complete numerators and denominators, etc.).

Comments on the draft recommendations and draft report are due on January 13, 2015; MAP to submit final recommendations to CMS on February 1. Comments can be submitted here.